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Determining the effect of a changing climate on tree growth will ultimately depend on our understanding of wood formation processes and how they can be affected by environmental conditions. In this context, monitoring intra-annual radial growth with high temporal resolution through point dendrometers has often been used. Another widespread approach is the microcoring method to follow xylem and phloem formation at the cellular level. Although both register the same biological process (secondary growth), given the limitations of each method, each delivers specific insights that can be combined to obtain a better picture of the process as a whole. To explore the potential of visualizing combined dendrometer and histological monitoring data and scrutinize intra-annual growth data on both dimensions (dendrometer → continuous; microcoring → discrete), we developed DevX (Dendrometer vs. Xylogenesis), a visualization application using the “Shiny” package in the R programming language. The interactive visualization allows the display of dendrometer curves and the overlay of commonly used growth model fits (Gompertz and Weibull) as well as the calculation of wood phenology estimates based on these fits (growth onset, growth cessation, and duration). Furthermore, the growth curves have interactive points to show the corresponding histological section, where the amount and development stage of the tissues at that particular time point can be observed. This allows to see the agreement of dendrometer derived phenology and the development status at the cellular level, and by this help disentangle shrinkage and swelling due to water uptake from actual radial growth. We present a case study with monitoring data for Acer pseudoplatanus L., Fagus sylvatica L., and Quercus robur L. trees growing in a mixed stand in northeastern Germany. The presented application is an example of the innovative and easy to access use of programming languages as basis for data visualization, and can be further used as a learning tool in the topic of wood formation and its ecology. Combining continuous dendrometer data with the discrete information from histological-sections provides a tool to identify active periods of wood formation from dendrometer series (calibrate) and explore monitoring datasets.
Tree growth at northern boreal treelines is generally limited by summer temperature, hence tree rings serve as natural archives of past climatic conditions. However, there is increasing evidence that a changing summer climate as well as certain micro-site conditions can lead to a weakening or loss of the summer temperature signal in trees growing in treeline environments. This phenomenon poses a challenge to all applications relying on stable temperature-growth relationships such as temperature reconstructions and dynamic vegetation models. We tested the effect of differing ecological and climatological conditions on the summer temperature signal of Scots pine at its northern distribution limits by analyzing twelve sites distributed along a 2200 km gradient from Finland to Western Siberia (Russia). Two frequently used proxies in dendroclimatology, ring width and maximum latewood density, were correlated with summer temperature for the period 1901–2013 separately for (i) dry vs. wet micro-sites and (ii) years with dry/warm vs. wet/cold climate regimes prevailing during the growing season. Differing climate regimes significantly affected the temperature signal of Scots pine at about half of our sites: While correlations were stronger in wet/cold than in dry/warm years at most sites located in Russia, differing climate regimes had only little effect at Finnish sites. Both tree-ring proxies were affected in a similar way. Interestingly, micro-site differences significantly affected absolute tree growth, but had only minor effects on the climatic signal at our sites. We conclude that, despite the treeline-proximal location, growth-limiting conditions seem to be exceeded in dry/warm years at most Russian sites, leading to a weakening or loss of the summer temperature signal in Scots pine here. With projected temperature increase, unstable summer temperature signals in Scots pine tree rings might become more frequent, possibly affecting dendroclimatological applications and related fields.
AbstractUsing measurements from high resolution monitoring of radial tree-growth we present new data of the growth reactions of four widespread broadleaved tree-species to the combined European drought years 2018 and 2019. We can show that, in contrast to field crops, trees could make better use of the winter soil moisture storage in 2018 which buffered them from severe drought stress and growth depressions in this year. Nevertheless, legacy effects of the 2018 drought accompanied by sustained low soil moisture conditions (missing recharge in winter) and again higher than average temperatures and low precipitation in spring/summer 2019 have resulted in severe growth reductions for all studied tree-species in this year. This highlights the pivotal role of soil water recharge in winter. Although short term resistance to hot summers can be high if sufficient winter precipitations buffers forest stands from drought damage, legacy effects will strongly impact tree growth in subsequent years if the drought persists. The two years 2018 and 2019 are extreme with regard to historical instrumental data but, according to regional climate models, resemble rather normal conditions of the climate in the second half of the 21st century. Therefore the observed strongly reduced growth rates can provide an outlook on future forest growth potential in northern Central Europe and beyond.